


Ready or Not

by totilott



Series: A Groovy Kind of Love [24]
Category: DCU (Comics), Justice League International (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Conflict Resolution, Kahndaq, M/M, Reunions, The Conglomerate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:18:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totilott/pseuds/totilott
Summary: Turns out an international incident is what it takes to put Booster and Ted in a situation where they can't avoid each other anymore.
Relationships: Michael Carter/Ted Kord
Series: A Groovy Kind of Love [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1282328
Comments: 16
Kudos: 63





	Ready or Not

There are guards. Lots of guards. Or sentries or whatever you want to call them. No uniform, no common symbols or characteristics except the AK-47s slung over their shoulder and an ornery look. The Kahndaq heat is sweltering, even inside the decrepit old palace. Ted feels a drop of sweat run down between his shoulder blades as he and Fire silently crawl through a crumbling gap in the wall, into an empty corridor. The dusty, intricate mosaic on the floor shows how nice this place must have been God knows how many years ago.

They give each other a look before they creep down the corridor. The League is split up investigating, trying to assess the situation. J’onn’s geopolitical history lesson on their flight over notwithstanding, they don’t have a lot to go on here.

A garbled distress call directly to the League from these coordinates. Something about hostages. Something about Black Adam.

Not a lot to go on at all.

Which is why Ted knows he’s gotta keep it together. Keep his focus, get his head back in the game, all of that. He’s been zoning out and getting distracted too much lately. Trying not to think about his stupid little break-in to talk to Booster last week. The humiliation, the disappointment burning inside him from the moment Booster caught him hiding in his room like a pantomime villain. Trying to forget the look on Booster’s face, so done with him it took him a good long while to even get properly angry with him. And it wasn't just straightforward anger, he could have handled that -- but the sheer exhaustion in Booster's voice was so much worse than --

_You need to focus._

Bea freezes, tugging on Ted’s arm to make him stop. He can hear it too. Footsteps. There’s a large chunk of debris, a piece of the ceiling, a few feet ahead, and they move behind it, squeezing together. They'd be less easy to spot if Ted had only lost those extra pounds he's been telling himself he will.

The footsteps move away again, and the two of them continue on, slowly, silently, Ted's rubber soles whisper quiet against the stone floor.

This time Ted’s the first to hear them. Muffled voices. Not moving closer or further away, just voices. Ted and Bea slowly turn the corner and find a large wooden door. The muffled conversation seems near now, so close to being legible it's maddening.

He ponders their situation. Closed doors are risky. They can crack it open, peek inside, but anyone within might glance over, even a half-inch of movement the same as bursting in yelling "We're here!".

For a moment he wishes he’d teamed up with J’onn when they split up. J’onn could have done his weird alien mind-reading thing and at least figured exactly who's behind this door, this crumpling wall.

“Psst, Beetle,” Bea whispers. She’s retreated a few steps back into the corridor, pointing where the wall meets the floor. There’s a bigger piece missing there, about ten inches across. Ted nods, lying down on the floor, inching his face closer to the gap. Trying to not inhale too much of the yellow-colored dust that's gathered in every crack.

“--Only a matter of time, of course. It will reflect very badly on your government once I’ve reclaimed my rightful place as ruler.” That deep, authoritative voice, Ted recognizes it immediately from newscasts. Black Adam.

It’s a grand hall, bright sunlight illuminating a massive table at the other end of the room, two silhouettes seated across from each other.

“Oh, absolutely,” replies a familiar voice. “That’s why we’re so keen on, you know -- getting in on, on, um... Street level? First floor?” There’s an embarrassed pause. “Ground floor! Ground floor on this. You ruling Kahndaq again.”

One of the silhouettes sits back, a beam of sunlight falling on blonde hair, glinting off yellow goggles.

Ted jolts, so sudden Bea taps him on the shoulder, a silent question to what he reacted so violently to. He waves her off, trying to keep his breathing steady.

“You seemed a lot less keen yesterday, Mr. Gold.” Adam smirks at him. “You can’t possible think I’m that gullible.”

Booster titters. “No, no.” He pulls a hand through his hair. Ted can’t help but notice his wrist blasters are gone. Booster’s voice drops low, confidential. “I’m sorry. Look, the corporate heads are screaming in my ear right now, just -- seventy different orders. Wanting me more enthusiastic, more laid back, happy, serious. You know. I'm trying not to get my wires crossed here.” He grins and taps at his earpiece. “They’re just excited to get this deal.”

“Sounds like this would be easier if I could talk to them directly.” Adam reaches out a hand, palm up, towards Booster.

“No. Nuh-uh.” Booster jumps back, cupping his ear with a protective hand. “No. That’s the deal. We either do this through me or -- or you go to New York and talk to them directly. That’s the deal.”

Ted almost groans as Bea leans across his back, trying to peek into the room too. Her elbow digs between his shoulder blades.

Adam sits back, regarding Booster with a cool eye. He crosses his arms.

“Okay, good,” Booster exhales with a grin. “So, um, we’d gotten as far as --” Booster tilts his head down and to the side. “Claire? How far did we get on the --? Ah,” he grins, looking back at Adam. “Ferris Aircrafts. They do, um, military stuff too, you know. Fighter jets and, um.” He pulls his fingers through his hair. “Very handy on the reclaiming-nations front.”

“And what does Ferris Aircrafts want in return for their support?”

“Echo,” Booster replies, concern tensing his forehead. “She’s the girl with the, the red hair. They want her released, safe and sound.”

Adam regards him silently.

“And 7 billion,” Booster continues. “Dollars. Or, or the equivalent, um, in your chosen denomination.”

Adam sighs, regarding the glass of wine in his hand.

“I’m being told they’re, um, open for negotiations on the money front, but as far as --” Booster licks his lips, casting a glance about the room. His gaze falls on the floor-level hole in the wall, and Ted can swear Booster does a double take, staring at him with wide blue eyes.

“Something wrong, Mr. Gold?” Adam sits back, resting his elbows against the armrests, steepling his fingers.

“No! I, um,” Booster sits up, grinning desperately across the table. “Just a bit of feedback in my -- my earpiece.”

Adam sips his wine. “Tell me what offers we have so far. Whose support am I haggling for like a common fishwife?”

“Right, um,” Booster looks down, frowning in concentration. “There’s um... Corral Oil in exchange for Praxis, that’s the --” He raises his hand, fingers parallel to the floor, to indicate height. “You know. And Vapor, that’s, um, LexCorp. Maxi-Man is, is K.O.R.D Industries --”

“You said this Maxi-Man was LexCorp, Mr. Gold.” There’s a disconcerting smirk on Adam’s face.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Booster laughs hoarsely. “Sorry, there are too many people talking in my ear at the same time, I need to --”

It’s subtle, the tremor. The earth vibrating underneath them, though Ted feels it a little more keenly lying on the floor. But it’s enough to make Adam cast a disapproving glance downwards.

“Your associate doesn’t seem willing to let up,” he remarks.

“You can’t fault him for trying, can you?” Booster posits with a nervous smile. When that doesn’t seem to elicit a response he rubs his neck and sighs. “If you want, I can go and have a talk with him.”

“It’s no matter,” Adam says. “He’s weakening; That one wasn’t even half of what he was doing yesterday. Even he must realize that.”

“Mm,” Booster replies, casting another subtle glance towards Ted.

“But I will have another talk with the guardsmen, like I said. I’m not a barbarian, and I don’t want that to be the kinds of stories people hear once this business is concluded.”

“Appreciate it,” Booster tells him, springing to his feet the moment Adam starts to rise. They exchange nods, Booster grinning desperately, and Adam strides out of the room -- thankfully through the door at the other end from where Ted is spying on the proceedings.

The door slams. Immediately Booster slumps back in his chair, his head drooping forward as he massages his temples with both hands.

“Jesus Christ,” he sighs. Then he strolls over to the cracked wall that separates him from Ted, and sits down cross-legged on the floor. “It had to be you, huh?” Exhausted frustration dripping from the words. Ted squirms.

“We’re all here, Booster,” Bea remarks, sitting back next to Ted. “We got your message.”

Booster frowns. “What message? I haven’t --” He pushes his goggles aside and rubs his eye. “Ah. Okay. Cynthia?” He twists around, scanning the room he’s in. “Cynthia, you here?”

“Here, Booster.” The voice is impossibly close. Ted twists around just in time to see Gypsy -- Cynthia -- become visible behind him and Bea. He can’t stop himself from emitting a low gasp.

She looks nervous and tired, but otherwise unharmed.

“You called in the _League?”_ Booster sounds so incredulous Ted could punch him if there wasn't a wall separating them.

“Who else could I contact, Booster?" Cynthia snaps back, uncharacteristically frustrated. She really must be exhausted. "I had less than ten seconds to relay a message.”

“No, it’s -- it’s fine.” Booster clears his throat. “Um, so... Everyone’s locked up in the basement, I think they -- I think they’re okay but I, um,” he hugs himself, leaning forward. “I don’t know what they -- I don’t know the, the layout, or what’s going on down there. I’ve been stuck up here since late last night.”

“Bargaining with Black Adam,” Bea remarks. “That can’t be easy.”

“You're telling me your sponsors are that eager to support a card-carrying villain planning a national coup in the Middle East?” Ted mutters. Even K.O.R.D Industries. When did they start sponsoring the Conglomerate?

Booster tips forward, laughing hoarsely. “They fucking aren’t, you dolt!” He taps his earpiece. “This stopped working before we even got here. And they’re out of range, too. It’s a miracle Cynthia managed to call in a message with hers at all.”

Ted looks at him incredulously. “Wait, you’ve been bluffing through the negotiations this whole time?”

Booster offers an exhausted smile in return. “I’m extremely good at lying.” He coughs and grows serious. "Or maybe he's toying with me to pass the time, who the hell knows?"

Ted wants to say something, about lies, about honesty, but he frowns at the floor instead.

“Whatever the case, you've done a good job, Booster,” Bea tells him earnestly. “Okay, J’onn and Tora were gonna check out the southern side of the palace, Guy’s on lookout on the roof. We’re gonna have to regroup, get you guys out of here.”

Booster casts a glance over his shoulder, at the door at the far end. “I need to stay here. If Adam finds me gone I don’t know what he’ll do to the team.”

Ted snorts. Really milking the selfless team leader schtick for all its worth. The newspapers are gonna salivate about this later.

“Cynthia should come with you,” Booster urges. “She’s got a pretty good idea of the layout. Right, Cynthia?”

“Of course,” she murmurs, flickering for a moment. “I think so.”

“Okay, so we have an immediate plan,” Ted concludes, starting to rise from the floor. He can be the selfless hero too. He can pretend this is just another rescue. He feels long nails dig into his arm, and he drops back to the floor with a wince.

“Cynthia and I’ll go back,” Bea interjects pointedly, glaring at him. “You stay here and keep tabs on Booster in case the negotiations go south.”

“Bea!” Ted whispers. “I really don’t think --" Another sharp-nailed pinch to his arm makes him groan. Like getting stabbed, those claws. "You stay here then, and _I’ll_ go.”

“The negotiations are fine,” Booster protests as well. “I can stall for time another thirty minutes, all of you go so I can --”

Bea points at Ted, fire in her eyes. _“You. Stay. Here."_ She holds his gaze sternly for several seconds before she turns, pulling Cynthia along by her arm, and turns the corner.

“Bea...!” Ted hisses after her, but they’re already gone.

He makes a noise, something like a soft whine, and crosses his arms as he sits on the floor, mirroring Booster on the other side of the wall. Not going to press himself into the dirt again to stare up at Booster’s disapproving face. Not going to give him that satisfaction.

“I bet you’re so content right now,” Booster mutters. “The hero riding in to save the incompetent leader of your rival crew. What a treat.”

“I’m only worried about your team mates,” Ted hisses. “None of them must have known what they signed up for when they agreed to work under you.” Work under Booster in several ways, judging by the hot date Ted interrupted at Booster’s a week ago.

“Whatever,” Booster hisses back, and Ted knows that phrase is the last refuge of someone who knows they’ve lost the argument. Yes, there is perhaps a little flush of satisfaction in him right now.

“Like that poor girl Gypsy,” Ted continues, unable to stop needling him now he's got the upper hand. “Pounced on her when she was completely unprepared, didn’t you? At a fucking _funeral.”_

Ted hears a shuffle of movement at Booster’s side of the wall, like he's adjusting his position. Like he's squirming. “You just can’t let that one go, can you? Just like you to bring that up every single time we --”

“Well, you’re the one to talk about holding grudges,” Ted snaps back. “You’re the one who can’t let the resort money lie. Fuck, you even hold it against me that I had the audacity to date someone before I met you.”

“Oh, sure, _that’s_ what my whole deal is,” Booster sighs sarcastically. "Gotta prey on innocents only, you know. Pull them into my _sordid_ fucking world."

There’s another shuffle of movement, the whisper of dust settling. But it sounds different this time somehow.

“And whose idea was stealing the money for the resort again?” Booster continues. "As I remember it, one of us told the other one it didn't feel right. I wonder which one _that_ \--

The sound's not coming from from the other side of the wall. “Booster,” Ted chokes out.

“Oh, you’re getting tired of revisiting that one? Oh I'm _sorry_ if you --”

“Booster,” Ted says again, forcing himself to twist and look behind him. "We're not alone." Behind him and so horrible high above him. Into the dark disapproving eyes of Black Adam.

* * *

“We’re not done!” Booster protests, a sharp exhale escaping him as the guard shoves him forward, Booster’s shoulder catching the door frame. “Tell Adam we’re not done! My sponsors are -- They’re not gonna want anything do with him after this. Fair warning. They won’t be into this at all!”

Ted doesn’t speak, an obscenely strong hand grasping the back of his neck, forcing him forward into the dark cellar. Every time he tries to slow down, the grip tightens, sending little explosions of pain up along his spine, into the back of his head.

Booster turns to look at the guard shoving him as he stumbles backwards along the corridor. “You can still save this, you know. Convince Adam to get back to the -- the negotiations.” His back bumps against steel bars. “He’ll be _so_ impressed with you. We’re talking... raises, and, and company car, and a cruise vacation probably.”

Booster’s back is up against the bars, desperation in his eyes as the guard grabs hold of his collar to push him onward. But at that moment a hand shoots out between the bars, grabbing hold of the guard’s strong wrist.

The one with the vice-like grip on Ted’s neck releases him and steps closer, and Ted can see Booster’s team mate, the young Puerto Rican man with the ever-present disapproving glare, keep his grip on the guard’s wrist and with his other hand fumble desperately for the machine gun slung over the guard's shoulder. It's like Ted's watching everything in slow motion.

The other guard, Ted's guard, grabs hold of the young man’s wrist in turn, wrenching it away and slamming it against the bars, eliciting a cry of pain. The guard grins, holding on, and with his other hand he pulls a blade from his belt, raising it, ready to plunge it forward.

“No no no no!” Booster exclaims, raising a warding hand, and Ted can tell by the familiar puff of displaced air he’s activated his force field just as the dagger is thrust forward.

Then everything is so still. The flurry of action has stopped just as quickly as it started.

They’re all looking at Booster, whose confused frown is directed towards his raised left hand, the knife hilt at the center of his palm with the blade and tip protruding through the other side of his glove. It takes a moment for blood to start dribbling along the metal, down the knife's edge. Booster’s breathing grows shallow, faster, his eyes widen.

With a grunt the guard pulls his blade black, out of Booster's palm, and that’s when Booster makes a short, sharp guttural cry, stumbling back, cradling his bloody hand.

“Ah,” he breathes. “Ah. Fuck. Fff--”

Ted can’t take his eyes off Booster’s pale face as they’re shoved into an empty cell. Only when he hears the slam of the barred door behind them does he return to the present. He grabs hold of the bars, shouting at the retreating guards. “You can’t just leave! Hey! He’s hurt!”

He glances back at Booster, leaning heavily against the back wall of the cell, shoulders hunched forward, pressing his wounded hand against his abdomen, the flow of blood staining his costume, dripping down onto his golden tights, the floor.

Booster’s breath whistles between clenched teeth. “Ohh motherfucker.”

Ted turns back to the darkness of the corridor, banging a palm against the bars. “Hey! He’s bleeding a lot. Just give us something to wrap it with. Something! We’ll do it ourselves, just --!”

But the metallic slam of a door in the darkness tells him they’re already abandoned.

“Reverb?” Booster tilts his head back against the wall, still breathing hard. “’Verb, is -- um. _Fuck._ \-- Is your arm okay? He didn’t break it?”

“My arm’s fine,” comes Reverb’s voice from the cell next to them. They’re separated by solid stone wall. “That looked pretty bad, though.”

“No, I’m fi-- I’m fine.” Booster's voice is hoarse as he grips his wrist tighter with a wince. Ted reaches out a hand towards him, palm up to look at his injury, but Booster sends him a cold glare and turns away. “Who else is here?”

“I’m here, Booster,” comes a woman’s voice.

Then a man: “Me too.”

Booster pauses. “Okay. Good. ‘Verb, Echo and Maxi. And me. Anyone else? Anybody know where they’re keeping Praxis and Vapor?”

“They said something about keeping them knocked out,” replies Echo. “To stop them from, you know, exploding their heads or gassing them.”

“But everyone in here is okay?”

“We’re fine, Booster.”

“You’re not,” Ted tells him, frowning. This time he grips Booster’s forearm, but Booster twists out of his grasp, his lip curling in a sneer.

“I’m fine! I’m....” He swallows, breathing deep. There's a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Perfectly fucking fine.”

“Dude,” Reverb mutters. “They stuck a knife straight through your hand.”

“You’re gonna bleed out at this rate,” Ted tells him, somewhere between certainty and assumption. No way to tell from afar, though he doesn't like the amount of blood on Booster's costume. He reaches out again, Booster once again twisting away.

“No, it’s fine,” Booster hisses. “It’s... stopping.”

Ted presses his lips together, trying to contain his anger. “You do know you have an artery right there? Let me just take a fucking _look!”_

“It’s not my artery,” Booster huffs. “I’ve seen nicked arteries. They, they pulse, they -- spurt. This one doesn’t pulse, it just --” He glances down at his hand, more blood dripping to the floor. “Flows.”

“Oh, that's _fine_ then,” Ted exclaims sarcastically. He grasps Booster by the shoulder, but Booster elbows him away, blood drops scattering to the floor. Ted makes a noise at the back of his throat. “Look, I’m just trying to help you!”

“Well I never asked for your help!” Booster hisses, clutching his hand. “You’re not gonna make this into the -- the time Booster fucked up so bad the adults had to come in and fix everything.” His chest rises with every hurried breath. “I’m not gonna play the grateful victim in need of rescue so you can feel big and, and, and strong and important.”

Ted could scream, he’s so angry and frustrated and confused. Instead he takes a deep breath, trying to ascertain if Booster is growing paler. “Look, the stuff we’ve got going on, can we just --” He meets Booster’s angry glare. “Put that aside for now? Like right now can we just make sure you don’t bleed out on the floor?”

“Sounds pretty good to me, boss,” comes Maxi-Man’s voice through the darkness.

Booster stumbles a step back, meeting the stone wall with a soft thud. “What do you care?” He frowns, regarding Ted. “What does _anyone_ care if I bleed out on the floor?”

Ted makes a strangled noise, looking at him. “That’s where you think we’re at? That I want you to die?”

Booster frowns, looking down at his hand. “I don’t know.” He chuckles weakly, resting his head against the wall and closing his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t want you to die, Booster,” Ted tells him as softly as he can. “So please. Let me look at your hand.”

“Like you can do anything about it.” Booster slides down, his back against the wall, until he’s seated on the floor. “I don’t see any -- mmh!” He winces, a shiver traveling up his body. “Any medical supplies on you.”

“If it was me,” Ted tells him slowly, uncertain if he should gamble on this. He kneels front of Booster. "If our places were switched, what would you want me to do?"

Booster regards him for a moment, frowning, his nostrils flaring slightly with every breath. Then he rolls his eyes and offers Ted his wounded hand, blood dripping a trail on the floor.

Gingerly Ted finds the edge of Booster's glove, feeling the warm skin of Booster's wrist with his own gloved fingertips. He begins pulling the torn glove off inside out, slowly, slowly.

When the fold reaches his palm Booster jolts and tenses, breath whistling between his teeth. “Mother _fuck!”_

“Almost there, Boos,” Ted murmurs, then quickly glances up. “-Ter.”

Booster chuckles coldly in between labored breaths.

The smooth fabric of the glove finally slips off Booster's bloodstained fingers. Ted frowns, gently holding Booster by the wrist. Hard to tell with all the blood, but the cut looks clean, no jagged etches. Should be okay to stitch up once they get out of here. And Booster was right. It doesn’t pulse, so there’s every chance he missed the artery. That’s good. They have a little more time. Probably. Bleeding’s good, anyway, for deep wounds. Well, relatively good, it helps push out debris and bacteria. God knows where that dagger had been before it was stuck through Booster’s hand.

Ted swallows, turning it over. Fuck, should he risk a tourniquet? Cutting off the blood supply to the whole hand is going to suck if they’re not out of here soon. But it's also better to lose a hand than your life. Fuck, if only he know how the League was doing up there.

“Tell it to me straight, doc,” Booster mutters hoarsely. “Am I ever gonna play the violin again?”

“If that’s your plan I’m having second thoughts letting you keep this hand,” Ted murmurs back, not meeting Booster’s gaze. Ted stands up, turning to speak to the others. “Any of you got... Like a strip of fabric, anything to use as a bandage?” He looks down at his costume, made of every worthless material you can make clothing out of. Useless.“Like cotton, or -- _Not_ lycra or leather or spandex?”

There’s a moment of silence.

“I’ve got a scrunchie,” Echo volunteers at the other end of the room, hesitantly. “I think it’s cotton. It’s not a lot, but maybe if you tore it you could --”

“I’ll take it,” Ted interjects. “Could we get it over to me without putting it on the floor, or, or getting it dirty?”

“I’m at the far end from you, but we can pass it from cell to cell I think. Henry -- Henry if you could --”

There’s muttering and shuffling to get the whole thing in order, but in another few minutes Ted sees Reverb’s hand appearing around the edge of the separating wall, waving a big purple scrunchie. Ted takes it, studying it in the dim light to find the seam, and tears it open all the way around. The elastic inside is tied with a knot, and he uses his teeth to undo it. Once everything's pulled apart, he sits down in front of Booster, who’s looking decidedly pale, and begins wrapping his hand tightly.

Booster swears forcefully and squirms against the wall. “I was -- Mmph! I was starting to think the pain was going away.”

“Do you feel any tingling, like in your fingertips?” Ted asks, frowning in concentration as he winds the fabric.

“Ah. I don’t kn--” Booster presses his lips together and groans. “I don’t know, it’s hard to tell with the, the shooting pain every time you -- Ahh fuck!” He jolts, snatching his hand back, undoing several rounds of Ted’s bandaging in the process.

“Goddammit Booster!” Ted exclaims, grabbing tight hold of Booster’s wrist again, pretty much wrenching it into position. “Just sit fucking still!”

“I hate it when you’re bossy.”

“You used to say you loved it,” Ted mutters without thinking, then immediately feels a flush of embarrassment heating his neck.

Booster snorts. “Well, if you tell me to blow you after this I’m not so sure I’ll be inclined to,” Booster replies, and he smirks with satisfaction when he sees the color of Ted’s face. “I’m guessing you’re straight again, anyway.”

 _“Booster,”_ Ted tells him sternly in a low voice, anxiety tightening his core. Too many strangers in here. Strangers to Ted, anyway. God knows how intimately they know Booster.

“You started it.”

“Well, you ended it,” Ted snaps back, panicking. “You’re the one who walked out on everyone with no warning.”

“No warning?” Booster exclaims, sitting up with a jolt. “You really think everything I did came out of the left field? Like, no indication whatsoever that I maybe I was, you know, unhappy and stressed and --”

“Sit still,” Ted tells him again, a little gentler, an attempt to calm things down. "Please. I'm trying to help."

Booster sighs, lowering his raised shoulders slightly, stretching out his long legs on the floor.

Ted glances up at him before he starts redoing the lost reams. “Anyway, I already apologized for the resort money, you know that.”

Booster gives him an incredulous look. “To who?”

“To you.”

“The fuck you did,” Booster snorts. “You never apologized for that.”

“I did,” Ted insists, refusing to look up. “The day you left.”

“Well that didn’t even register, so it can’t have been very good.”

 _Oh, I could murder him._ Ted takes a deep breath. “Fine,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry about the resort money.”

Booster sniffs, regarding him. “Like, anything in particular?”

“What do you want?” Ted groans. “I’m sorry about the whole mess, okay? I really thought it would pay off and that we could give back double the amount to the League, I really thought we --”

“I know _why_ you did it,” Booster interjects sharply.

“Why _we_ did it,” Ted mutters.

“Whose idea was it in the first place?” Booster sneers, sitting forward. “Which one of us kept saying ‘don’t worry, it’s fine’ and which one kept being very clear it felt like a humongous mistake?"

“Sit still,” Ted tells him again, and then he glances up at Booster’s disapproving face. “Fine, it was my idea. I’m sorry. You objected -- Very late, I might add, when most of the money was already spent --”

There’s a spark of anger in Booster’s eyes. “Oh, you fucking --”

“But fair enough, you objected and I didn’t listen. I’m _sorry.”_ He picks up the elastic and ties it snugly around the reams of purple cotton. “And, uh...” Ted swallows, letting go of Booster’s hand, who pulls it quickly to his chest. “I might have given you the impression I’ve been... More competent at investing and handling money than I -- than I’ve actually been. I’m sorry for that too.”

Booster cradles his injury with his other hand, and looks down at it. “Good point,” he mutters, frowning.

“Keep your hand up,” Ted urges quietly.

“It’s just --” Booster inhales deeply, raising his hand to eye level, like a student holding up his hand in class. “I didn’t think you’d lie to me like that.”

Ted wipes his face, realizing too late how much of Booster's blood he's got on his fingers. He rubs his wrist against his cheek in an attempt to wipe it off. “Look, I’m... not exactly proud of the mess I left behind at the old family business, okay?” Ted mutters, looking away. “Five years ago I was the biggest public screw-up in the nation for _weeks_. All the papers writing about me, late night hosts cracking jokes, journalists hounding me, and... and I guess I just...” He swallows. “It was nice to have someone who wasn’t so aware of all that.”

Booster snorts. “So you were embarrassed? That was your lowest point, that people made fun of you?”

“I’m very used to people making fun of me, Booster.” Ted sends him a glare. “Nothing growing up fat and nerdy and awkward didn’t prepare me for, trust me.”

The floor trembles for a moment, and there's a muffled cracking sound far, far above them.

“I’m sure your dad’s money must have softened the blow,” Booster mutters, pulling up a leg so he can rest his elbow on the knee, his hand held up.

“Oh sure," Ted tells him sarcastically. "Having the audacity of being a child from a well-off Jewish family in a gentile school, you don’t think _that_ led to some fun years of torment?” He waits for an answer, but Booster avoids his gaze. Ted sighs. “I just don’t understand why you became this...” He makes a defeated gesture. _“Class warrior_ all of a sudden. All the time you’ve known me we’ve lived the same, we’ve -- we’ve been the same.” Booster a little better off, in fact, with his revenue from modeling, but Ted refrains from saying it.

There’s a cold silence in the room. Only the impersonal buzzing of electricity of the naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

Booster exhales through his nose, shifting his position again. He looks down at his costume, the bloodstains black in the dimness of the room. He clears his throat. “You know, my, um,” he mutters, resting the back of his head against the stone wall, gazing up at the bars. “My mom, she used to clean. For a while, after my -- my dad split. When Michelle and I were kids.”

Ted looks at him, at his blue eyes, his tensed forehead.

“She already had her office job then but it, it wasn’t enough. So she’d go straight to our neighbors after work and, like, do their laundry and clean their toilets and everything.” He sniffs, idly running his finger along the edge of the bandage. “Like, we were seven so we -- we knew we were struggling, but the kids at school --” He snorts. “The little shits. They were _barely_ better off than us, like their parents worked two jobs too, sometimes three, but... Suddenly they could always pick on us, shut us down, because _their_ parents could order our mom around. Even when things got a little better and mom stopped cleaning, they never let us forget it. Ever.”

Ted blinks in the darkness. “Kids are assholes all through history, huh?”

Booster pulls his uninjured hand through his hair. “Michelle handled it better than me. She just ignored them, but... I was so mad at _mom_. Just --” He clears his throat again, looking at the hanging lightbulb. “So furious with her. That she put us in that position, and at how I never got to see her when she wasn’t exhausted and I -- I said some, um, really vile shit to her, you know?”

Ted exhales softly through his nose. “You were a kid.”

“I was such a fucking asshole. Never even apologized,” Booster murmurs, blinking at the dim light. “Just let it lie until it was too late. And then --” He chuckles thinly. “I guess with the resort money and the cleaning duty, I just... I think it got a little bit too --” He glances at Ted. “Close, again. That -- that humiliation and those feelings. I think I kinda lost it a little bit, having to do that every day.”

“You could have told me,” Ted insists, a strange feeling moving within him. Frustration and sympathy and anger all mixed together. “You could have told Max. Cleaning duty, that was -- that was arbitrary, just a random form of punishment. He could have made you do just about anything if you had just--”

"But I --" Booster attempts hiding his face in his hands, but jolts when his injured hand makes contact. He wipes his face with his other hand instead. “In my head, I, um -- I kinda wanted it to be you. I wanted _you_ to be the one who found cleaning beneath you, and, and humiliating like that. Because of your whole.... background.” He swallows, pinching his eyes closed. “But you just took it in your stride, you asshole.” He chuckles weakly. “While I had to have a fucking crisis of identity every time I picked up the duster.”

“God. Booster,” Ted murmurs, and he is surprised that when spoken softly like that, the name feels so familiar again, like it belongs in his mouth. He tries shaking the feeling off. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you --”

“I’m trying to say I’m sorry, okay?” Booster exclaims, frustrated. “If we’re doing this, I wanna say I’m... sorry, too. For how I was acting at the end there.” He turns to look at Ted, and something softens in his face. “For how I left.”

They look at each other in silence, and Ted feels a strange warm sensation in his stomach, and it scares him. Scares him that after months of building up his defenses, his cold hard shell is this easily undone, just by being in the presence of Booster again. Just talking with him.

Ted feels too exposed, and anxiously he reaches for the next barrier to put between them. “And then you did your whole recruitment drive at Scott’s funeral.” Scott’s _android’s_ funeral, but he trusts Booster to understand the shorthand.

Booster makes a face and looks away.

 _Good,_ Ted thinks, a strange sort of relief coming to him. Their feud isn’t ended. It was never this easy.

Booster hesitates. “Okay. That was... really stupid of me.”

 _No. No, it can’t be this easy._ Everything Ted has been trying to tell himself about Booster these months can't be this easily disproven. It can't be like this.

“I hate so much that I did that. Really,” Booster continues, tensing his forehead. “I was just -- I had upended my whole life, you know? Burned every bridge I could possibly burn, and then I heard Scott was dead and --” He clears his throat. “I felt responsible, you know? I leave the League and next thing one of us dies, and at the funeral I --” He pauses, studying his injured hand with an almost puzzled look. “I couldn’t find the courage to talk to any of you, but I saw Cynthia and I -- Fuck. I saw -- I saw Cynthia and...”

As Booster’s voice trails off, Ted looks up at him just as Booster’s body tips to the side, his back against the stone wall making a soft shuffling sound as it slides. He weakly flails before his shoulder and then his head hits the floor with a soft thud.

“Booster!” Ted is up on his feet and hunched over the long, limp body before he can think.

Booster blinks at the cell floor, trying to push himself back up but his efforts send a shiver through his body. “Jesus,” he mutters.

“Don’t get up,” Ted tells him. “Just lie down on your back. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“S'like someone just... turned off the switch for a second,” Booster murmurs, closing his eyes, allowing Ted to hold his head as he pushes him over on his back. “Like a ba--bad connection. Or something.”

Ted sets his jaw. God, he was hoping it wasn’t this bad. He gingerly picks up Booster’s limp, injured hand, noting how every inch of the once-purple cotton is soaked dark with blood.

He needs to apply more pressure to the wound. He looks down at himself, trying to find any solid, relatively smooth object he can press against the lacerations. Nothing. If the guards hadn’t taken his BB gun he could have broken it apart, used the outer shell. Useless. He looks up at the bars. Maybe some of the others --

Oh. Yes.

He lets go of Booster’s hand, and the way it limply falls to Booster’s chest makes Ted wince. He pulls off his own cowl, turns it inside out, and finds the tiny snaps that hold the goggles in place.

“No, you’ll --” Booster murmurs. “Someone will see you.”

Ted offers him a smile as he rips the orange lenses off, inch by inch. “So you’re still with us?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Booster closes his eyes, tensing his forehead. “Jus’ got dizzy for a moment, I’m f-- I’m fine.”

“Well of course you are,” Ted tells him, taking hold of each goggle lens and tearing the rubber link that holds them together with a grunt. “If you were a lost cause I wouldn’t bother.”

Booster inhales deeply. “Buddy, I’ve been a lost cause since the day I was born.”

 _“Wow,”_ Ted giggles. “Let me know when you’re done driving the car off the cliff to impress Natalie Wood.”

“I don’t --” Booster blinks weakly at the ceiling. “I don’t get that reference.”

“It’s fine, I'll show you sometime,” Ted mutters, unwinding the elastic from Booster’s hand. Globs of congealed blood stick to his gloves. “Okay, I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure this is gonna suck.” He places the convex sides of his plastic lenses against Booster’s hand, one in his palm, one on the back.

Booster gasps softly. “Okay. Ah. Mm. That wasn’t so b--” Booster’s sentence ends in a hoarse yowl as Ted presses the lenses against the wound on each side, struggling to keep his grip as Booster thrashes and kicks against the floor.

“I know, I know, I know,” Ted coos, hooking a leg around Booster’s arm and pressing his knee into his shoulder to keep him down.

“Mother _fucker!_ ” Booster pants, slamming his other fist repeatedly against the floor. “Ahh I hate you. Fuck!”

“It’s okay,” Ted tells him, appreciating how Booster is struggling less moment by moment. “It’s okay. You’re doing good.”

“Jesus Christ.” Booster grimaces at the dark ceiling, tears in his eyes. “That was worse than the fucking knife.” He presses his lips together and lets out a drawn-out groan.

“But it’s starting to hurt a little less,” Ted offers, at which Booster replies with a soft whimper. “And you didn’t pass out. We’re doing great here.”

“Well hooray for us,” Booster breathes, still staring at the ceiling.

Now that Booster is calm, Ted removes his knee from his shoulder and sits back, still holding up Booster’s hand, still pressing the lenses against the wounds. Booster’s wrist is stained with blood, but at least he can’t see any fresh blood running down. He should have done this to begin with. Should have realized a cut like that needed more pressure. Idiot.

He looks down at Booster, at the tear that has run down, trapped against the edge of Booster's own goggles. “So your force field belt is still having issues, I take it?”

“It works most of the time,” Booster mutters, exhausted. “Like, nine times out of ten it works. And then once in a while I just get that -- that little half-second barrier and then it’s out for hours.”

 _Sounds like some kind of power issue,_ Ted thinks, his mind already pondering the attempt at schematics he made for that belt when he and Booster were trying to get it working again. Maybe it needs to be charged, maybe it has a battery that should be changed. They're working blind with that thing.“I really thought we fixed that,” he murmurs. “You should have told me you were still having issues.”

Booster snorts. “Yeah, that would have gone well. ‘Hey Teddy, I know we’re not talking but could you fix this up for me real quick?’”

“Well, we’re talking now, aren’t we?” Ted murmurs, sounding more grumpy than he means to. “I want to have another look at it when we’re through here.”

Booster looks at him, studies him with a gentle frown. “Okay," he murmurs.

“Good,” Ted tells him, looking away, letting his gaze rest the dark stone floor. “Thank you.”

Somewhere several floors above them is a drawn-out rumbling, like thunder. Then everything's quiet again.

Booster shifts, another forceful groan escaping him as his hand moves in Ted’s grasp. When he lets his shoulders drop back against the floor again he sighs. “So, um. Where are we at, now?”

“I believe we are in a dungeon in Kanhdaq,” Ted murmurs, tossing his head back to get a lock of hair out of his eyes.

Booster closes his eyes and groans, but there’s a hint of a smile tensing his mouth. “You know what I mean. You and me.”

Ted exhales, looking at Booster's pale face, at his blonde hair, wet with perspiration and gritty with dirt from the floor. “You think I know?”

“Well, I don’t know either,” Booster whines softly. “I don’t even understand how we -- how everything got this bad.”

Ted swallows, meeting Booster’s blue eyes. He can feel a subtle tremor Booster’s hand.

Booster presses his lips together in a moment of hesitation, but he doesn't waver from Ted's gaze. “I just know I -- I’ve missed you so much, Ted.”

Fuck. Was it actually this easy all along? How horrible it would be if it was this easy the whole time.

“I’ve missed you too, Boos,” Ted whispers, and he feels embarrassed at the way his voice trembles, but he swallows down the feeling. “It’s --" He chuckles nervously. "Fucking crazy how much I’ve missed you.”

Booster grins, letting out a relieved exhale, almost like a chuckle too, and looks at Ted with a look so affectionate and tender it sends a warm wave through Ted’s body, fluttering, tingling. It takes his breath away in a way that's completely ridiculous considering where they are, what they're doing. Even more absurdly, he is overwhelmed by an urge to touch Booster, hug him tight, virtually any point of contact besides holding up Booster’s injured hand.

He reminds himself he can't make Booster move too much in his present condition, the man could be moments away from going into shock from blood loss. _This isn't the time or place for sentimental tenderness, Ted._ But he allows himself to raise his free hand, brushing back Booster’s hair from his goggles, slowly, fingertips resting against the skin of his temple, feeling the heat of him through his own gloves.

Ted sits back again, and they smile sheepishly at each other for a while. Booster lying on the floor, Ted sitting cross-legged beside him.

They're stuck in this hopeless, terrible situation and they're this happy. How stupid can two guys be?

“Someone’s coming,” Maxi-Man announces urgently, and Ted jolts at the realization they’ve had an audience throughout everything. He frowns, trying to remember what’s been said between the two of them, if they’ve let on too much, if this reunion, if it is one, could be what brings it all crashing down.

“It’s okay,” Booster whispers at him, having guessed what’s suddenly made Ted so uneasy. He raises his uninjured hand to comfort him, trembling and weak, and Ted pushes it down.

“Don’t try to move,” he tells him sternly and swallows. “Just save your strength until we’re --”

Yes. Definitely footsteps. God knows what the guards want now. If they're after Booster Ted’s ready to fight. He’ll swing at them, give them some real trouble. He’ll go in his stead, whatever needs to be done.

He squints into the darkness of the room and at the sound of the steps approaching them, which quickly come to a stop close by.

“Bet you guys are ready to get some air, huh?”

“Fire?” Ted grins, a load dissolving from his shoulders. It's like he could fly. “What’s happened up there?”

“A good old fashioned fight,” Bea tells him brightly, and there’s a jingling of keys as she unlocks one of the cells. “At least until J’onn had a heart-to-heart with the head of the guards, made him see our side of things. Adam had a massive mutiny on his hands and fled.”

“Thank God,” Booster breathes.

More jingling, the creaking of a door, and suddenly Bea’s in the cell with them. Her smile fades. “What’s happened to Booster?”

“A dagger,” Booster titters, angling his head back on the floor to see Fire's face. “Just my -- my hand. It’s fine.”

Bea is joined by the remainder of Booster’s team, save for the ones who have been kept elsewhere, all looking down at them, concern on their faces.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Ted says, not taking his eyes off Booster’s pale face. “We need to get him out of here.” He looks up at the group, his gaze falling on the biggest silhouette. “Maxi-Man, isn’t it? We’ve got a plane not far from here, you’re strong, right? Can you carry him there?”

“I don’t need to be carried,” Booster protests weakly, fighting to sit up. “I’m perfectly fff --” His head and torso tip forward, like his spine is made of rubber. “Ah. Um.” He pants softly, trying not to move, then whimpers softly when Maxi-Man picks him up.

Ted springs to his feet, still tightly gripping Booster’s hand, the lenses pressed against it. No need to cause any more blood loss before they’ve made it out. “For God’s sake, Booster,” he mutters.

“Jus’ a little dizzy,” Booster groans softly, his eyes closed.

"Just shut up, don't try to speak."

Ted doesn't pay attention to the way out of the ruined palace, doesn't pay attention to who says what, what arrangements are made, what people come with them on their plane, what the rest of the Conglomerate do to leave. He's vaguely aware everyone's okay except for minor scuffs. Nothing bad. Not like Booster.

He keeps pressing the lenses against the wound, even though his hand is cramping, even though his arm is screaming in protest. There hasn’t been any fresh blood in a while painting Booster’s wrist and arm, but even holding on to Maxi-Man, even allowing himself to be gently placed in the plane seat, Booster’s using strength he doesn’t have, taxing his body for energy that was spilled out on a cell floor. There's a small medical pack in the plane, and they exchange the goggle lenses and bloody scrunchie for sterile compresses and reams of bandage. Ted keeps stealing glances to Booster's increasingly pale face, his fluttering eyelids; Keeps shushing his slurred speech.

What kind of story would theirs be, if it ended here? If they finally managed to get civil with each other again, only for Booster to --

The short flight to Cairo feels like an eternity. When they arrive, there’s a short discussion about whether they should find him a hospital there or just use their Cairo Embassy's teleporter back to New York. As they talk Booster keeps murmuring nonsense about a robot. In light of this delirium, they opt for New York, the hospital with most up-to-date information about Booster's peculiar reactions to strong medication. When Maxi-Man finally lowers Booster into the passenger seat of Ted's car, Bea appears, throwing Ted a spare cowl.

As if the small matter of Ted’s secret identity means anything in the scope of things.

The drive feels like it's done in the blink of an eye. Then comes hours pacing waiting room floors, listening to doctors, taking out prescriptions. At one point the Montgomery lady appears, fraught with worry, and politely keeps Ted company for several hours.

There's the feeling he's been here before, just like this. Except that time, he didn't know anything about Booster's condition, about his chances of recovery. He reminds himself he's assessed the injury himself this time, has seen the (vast) amounts of blood with his own eyes.

It doesn't help.

The Booster that is finally wheeled out at two in the morning is still pale but several shades healthier than he was last time Ted saw him. He even grins and teases Ted for looking like hell, but when Ted stumbles towards him and hugs him so hard Booster wheezes, the teasing stops.

He knew it. He knew it couldn't ever end like that. It wouldn't have been fair.

The drive to Booster’s apartment is presumably slower than the drive to the hospital, but equally silent. Ted finds himself frequently glancing over to Booster, to his stitched-up bandaged hand lying limp in his lap, to the way Booster's unfocused gaze is turned to the windshield, his head propped against the headrest.

Ted can't think of a time he's ever seen Booster this exhausted.

"You keep looking at me," Booster murmurs, not moving his gaze. "You worried I'm gonna keel over again?"

"No, I was just --" Ted clears his throat, frowning at the road ahead. "If you wanna sleep you can adjust the backrest, you know."

"If I fall asleep here I don't think you're gonna be able to wake me for a few weeks." Booster blinks slowly. "Thought I'd be nice and not make you carry me up to the fourteenth floor."

Ted giggles thinly and the car grows silent again except for the unhealthy-sounding chugging of the motor.

“So Teddy,” Booster murmurs, turning his head with some effort and looking at him. “Do you think we... I mean --” He exhales self-consciously, looking down at his bandage. “I still don’t know what we...” His voice trails off.

“What?” Ted asks softly, not looking at him.

“Where we’re at,” Booster mutters.

“Well right now we’re in --”

“New York, I know,” Booster smirks. Then he adds, quietly: “You need new material.”

Ted wipes his face, trying to keep alert. “I haven’t had anyone to test new material on.”

“Okay, so I can be your long-suffering audience again,” Booster smiles gently, blinking the street lights. “Okay? That’s... That’s one thing settled.”

There’s a pause.

"But other than that?" Booster asks, still studying him.

Ted clears his throat, searching for words to say. The silence drags on.

“Are we friends again?” Booster asks quietly, turning his head to look out the side window.

Ted glances at him. “Fuck, I sure hope so.”

“Okay, good.” A whisper of a smile. Booster chews his lip. “Are we, um. _Best_ friends again?”

“I --” Ted clears his throat, frowning in thought. “I don’t think I know any other way to -- to be friends with you,” he tells him earnestly.

Booster lets out a weak giggle.

“Like you’ll have me over for tea once in a while so we can gossip about your neighbors or something?” Ted continues, grinning. “I don’t know how that would work.”

“Imagine us at a party," Booster grins. "And me like, ‘Oh Theodore, I haven't seen you in a _dog's age!”_

Maybe it’s the exhaustion, because none of this is all that funny, but the way their snorting and laughter intermingles sounds so familiar. So right.

Booster titters, then wipes his eyes with his good hand. He’s silent for a moment before he clears his throat. “And, um,” he mutters, frowning down at his lap. “Would you like to be more? Than friends?”

God, that’s a question, isn’t it? One for four in the morning, blood-stained and exhausted and sore.

Ted frowns at the road, taking his time. Breathing deeply through his nose. Everything feels so definite it scares him. That everything might come down to this moment, this one answer. He imagines years of friendship, carrying around that ever-present urge to... kiss him again. The memory of that, forever in him. Every hug, every passing touch a torturous temptation, knowing that he could, but he made a promise he never would again. A close, passionate friendship filled with some kind of love, sure, lots of it, but forever burdened by memories of the distant, delicious past. Haunted by the fact that they _could have._

On the other hand, what would the alternative look like in the long run? He doesn’t know. He can't know. If he says yes, will there be a moment years from now, when he’s been found out, exposed to the world, ruined, that he will curse himself for the choice he made one early spring morning his car on the way from the hospital? Can he take more of the guilt and the self-doubt and the anxiety, that cost weighing him down when all he wanted was to buy more moments of -- of kissing and hugging and touching and appreciating someone like Booster?

Or maybe it’ll burn out, this little experiment. Follow whatever course it’s meant to, and having tried, they can sit back, satisfied at the end. And be done with it.

Would Booster want to? He asked. In some way he has to want it, right? He wouldn't have asked if he didn't think it could bring a little bit of happiness, if he didn't think that in some way it would be worth it. It's on the table, everything is on the table. Everything comes down to this.

He glances at Booster who’s still frowning down at his hand, waiting for an answer, and the curve of his forehead, the way the passing street lights play off his blonde eyelashes, even the texture of the blonde stubble on his chin, makes the breath catch in Ted’s throat.

It's not just... a desperate physical attraction, though that would make this so much more straightforward. If it was just lust and sex and -- whatever. But deep inside he acknowledges he wants nothing more than to make Booster happy. To make him smile, to make him content, to make him feel warm and safe and loved. And however selfish it sounds, he can't figure out how he could ever do that without doing it himself. He wants to be the one who does it.

“I thi-- I think I would,” Ted stutters, tightening his grip on the wheel. Sending a small heartfelt apology to future Ted, who might be paying the cost of those words.

Booster's nostrils flare slightly, and he doesn't look up. "That took you a while," he chuckles, but there's no real relief on his face. "You sure?"

“Yeah," Ted breathes, not daring to look at him. "Maybe if we -- we could go slow, you know? Slower than before, figure out what -- Set some rules. Or not _rules,_ we could --” He hears himself babble, gripping the steering wheel, trying not to crash. “We could find a way we both could be, you know, be... _Comfortable_ with what we -- what we’re doing.”

_I want you to be happy. **I** want to be happy. I want to make you happy, and then I’ll be happy knowing you’re happy._

It could be that simple, right?

“Yes,” Booster murmurs at last, tilting his head back, gazing at the purple-colored sky. “I think I’d like that too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hooray! Poll results are in: In the future you'll get ALIEN APHRODISIAC silliness. Thank you so much for voting!
> 
> As for this conflict: I'm not saying we're done, I'm not saying this is all resolved, because our boys still need to relearn how to communicate and act with each other, but aren't you glad we're getting there? A little bit of hurt/comfort to help us along? Getting more of that comfort next, baby.
> 
>  **[Song:](https://open.spotify.com/user/tilly_stratford/playlist/4SqomvmhyncWPEAobYUZ88?si=DNXWufsLSs29KqRywW2U9A)**  
>  Ready or not - Lou Gramm


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